Eat To Live: An adventurous granny cook
Extraordinary people, pursuing and promoting their passion for food, can be found in the oddest places.
Take a river trip down the Vézère from Terrasson in the Dordogne in Southwest France through August on one of the flat bottomed "gabares" -- boats once used for transporting local produce down to Bordeaux -- and your guide will be an exceptional one.
Danièle Mazet-Delpeuch was born in Paris but grew up in the Périgord (the local name for the Dordogne), falling increasingly in love with its cuisine the older she became. Her grandmother, a traditional cook with a flair for the regional dishes of the area, and her mother, who had been professionally trained and was a particular wizard at pastries, were her original instructors.
A mother of four at 25, this now grandmother has taken her love of Périgord food and cooking to dizzying heights.
In 1970 she sparked almost single-handedly the revival of the local and flagging foie gras industry. Over the course of her three-day Foie Gras Weekends, launched in 1975, she introduced sometimes squeamish foreigners to the delicate technique of working with goose and duck livers.
Four years later she founded the region's first cooking school while simultaneously turning part of her home into a restaurant that focused on local specialties.
Lights in this number can't be hidden under a bushel for long. Honors were bestowed, the highest from the French agricultural industry in 1981, a lifetime award rarely conferred upon a woman, the Chevalier du Mérite Agricole.
President François Mitterand, an ardent fan of regional French food, lured her in 1988 to the Élysee Palace as his private chef. During her two-year stint she cooked his personal dinner parties for the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev, traveling with the French president to help him entertain in embassies abroad.
For most, all that would have been adventure enough. But this tireless promoter of good food now in her 66th year has an appetite for unique experiences. In 2000 she spent 14 months in Antarctica, cooking for a French scientific research station to which deliveries were made only once every four months.
If there were one thing only to learn from her, it should be to emulate the place of cooking schools in France as she describes it. Were the philosophy behind them to apply in the same way in the United States, the general standard in cookery and eating might be raised.
They are viewed in France as art schools, she says, as much as they are a place to learn a craft -- because cooking is deemed a crucial aspect of French culture.
When not lecturing on river boats, she can be found at her own school, in her 700-year old farmhouse, teaching small groups over several days how to prepare pork pates, plum tartes, cheese beignets and other local Périgord specialties.
Perhaps even this celebratory one:
-- Crayfish the Perigordine way
-- Serves 6
-- 5 dozen crayfish, the central black vein removed
-- 1¾ pints white wine
-- 13 fluid ounces crème fraiche
-- 1 bouquet garni (package of dried bay and thyme leaves)
-- 2 tablespoons brandy
-- 1 slice of bacon, diced
-- 3 shallots, finely diced
-- 1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
-- 1 medium carrot, peeled and finely diced
-- 2 tablespoons butter
-- salt and pepper to taste
-- Melt the butter in a large heavy-bottomed pan over low heat and soften the shallot and the carrot.
-- Turn the heat high and add the crayfish, stirring till they turn red.
-- Add the brandy, salt and pepper and shake the pan vigorously to burn off the alcohol.
-- Pour in the wine, the bouquet garni and the garlic and bring to the boil.
-- Cook 4 minutes, then add the bacon and the crème fraiche and cook 2 minutes more.
-- Remove the crayfish to a warm dish with a slotted spoon and boil the sauce over high heat to reduce and thicken to a creamy consistency.
-- Return the crayfish to the sauce, cook through a further 3 minutes, then serve sprinkled with finely chopped parsley. |
